


what's left of my right mind

by DivineProjectZero



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s05e09 The Rundown Job, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25548625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineProjectZero/pseuds/DivineProjectZero
Summary: Quinn stares at brown hair through his scope and thinks, distantly, that he needs to take the shot. This is business. He can’t fuck up on a job because he just happens to know the guy between his crosshairs. It’s not like he’s even friends with Eliot Spencer.And yet, all he can think isdon’t make me do this.
Relationships: Mr. Quinn/Eliot Spencer (Leverage)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 145





	what's left of my right mind

**Author's Note:**

> Self-betaed. All mistakes are mine. Constructive feedback is always welcome.
> 
> This is an alternate take on The Rundown Job, based on the DVD commentary where apparently the creators considered having Quinn be the Washington sniper. 
> 
> Title from "Future Starts Slow" by The Kills.

Quinn is peering down the scope of his sniper rifle when somebody steps in front of his target, blocking her off from view. It should be impossible to identify somebody just from the slope of their shoulders and their hair, but even without seeing his face, Quinn recognizes Eliot Spencer anyway.

There’s no way this is a coincidence; there’s a very deliberate set to Eliot’s shoulders as he shields the target from Quinn’s view. He must have already clocked the location of Quinn’s perch, and it’s both infuriating and impressive, how Eliot has his back to a sniper that he can’t possibly know the identity or morals of. Any other sniper would shoot him in the back to get a better view of the target. 

Except Quinn _knows_ Eliot; even if he blew a hole through Eliot’s gut or kneecaps, the bastard would probably not go down until he’s moved the target to safety. The only way to drop Eliot for sure is to take him out with a headshot, and then aim at the target in the two seconds it would take for her to realize what was happening.

Quinn stares at brown hair through his scope and thinks, distantly, that he needs to take the shot. This is business. He can’t fuck up on a job because he just happens to know the guy between his crosshairs. It’s not like he’s even friends with Eliot Spencer.

And yet, all he can think is _don’t make me do this_. 

He doesn’t pull the trigger fast enough; it’s only when Eliot is manhandling the target behind cover that Quinn curses and shoots furiously. Even then, he’s acutely aware that there’s no way he’s getting to the target now. The job is blown. All because Quinn had a bout of—a moral crisis, or whatever the hell that was.

He disassembles the rifle as fast as he can and stuffs the parts into a customized carrier disguised as a guitar case. Then he’s swinging the case over his shoulder and running for the stairwell, calculating the fastest exits out of DC, when Eliot fucking Spencer comes dashing up the stairs, cutting off his escape route. 

He can pinpoint the exact moment Eliot realizes who he’s facing off against, because his eyes go wide, just the slightest bit, and he goes very still. Not the way you freeze in shock, but the way you know a threat is in front of you and you’re readying yourself for an attack.

Quinn has a hand two inches from his concealed holster. He’s on higher ground, and Eliot isn’t close enough yet to close the distance between them to disarm him before Quinn can pull the trigger. All Quinn needs is to fire off one shot, just enough to give himself the edge to get past Eliot and run.

He doesn’t grab his gun. Doesn’t move at all.

And then Eliot—

Eliot steps aside. 

Quinn can’t believe it, even as he sees it right in front of him. He’s convinced it’s a trap, right until the moment Eliot grits out, “Go.”

It’s the pained, gutted way Eliot utters the word that has Quinn moving, rushing past Eliot and taking the steps two at a time until he hits ground level, racing past the still-chaotic plaza and not slowing down until he’s three blocks away. He allows himself seven seconds to get his breath back, and then grabs the first cab out to the train station. 

It’s only when he’s safely ensconced in a half-full train cabin headed towards Bethesda that he first texts the agent who offered him the job to report back his failure, and he’s only partially surprised to hear that there’s no hard feelings from that side; they’d expected a failure the very moment Eliot intervened.

_Could’ve given me a heads up_ , he thinks, but he keeps that to himself. Instead, he graciously accepts that he won’t be getting the remaining half of his fee that was due after the completion of the job. 

Then he does some digging online through his phone, searching for the latest news in DC and the whispers of jobs that have been simultaneously happening in the capital. He recognizes, belatedly, that there’s been particular people in very specific positions targeted today, and his stomach sinks when he figures out just what the hell he was about to contribute to. What Eliot and his team have inadvertently dragged themselves into.

It’s none of Quinn’s business, now. He failed—which stings, because he’s had jobs go sideways before but he’s never flat-out blown a job like this ever since that airport hangar nearly four years ago—and terrorism is definitely above his paygrade. 

But it’s definitely beyond Leverage’s paygrade, too.

He doesn’t owe them anything; Eliot is the one who still owes Quinn a favor, something he just never found the right opportunity to cash in on, and Quinn works for money and the thrill of being good at what he does. He isn’t a good Samaritan; he’s a guy who was about to kill an innocent woman today. That’s just the kind of person Quinn is. 

But Eliot let him go. Even when he knew it was dangerous. Even when he knew Quinn could still be a threat. He’d stood aside and told Quinn to run.

And since when does Quinn just do whatever Eliot Spencer tells him to?

The moment he’s off the train in Bethesda, he stashes the rifle case in the closet of the bland, mediocre hotel room he checked into last night and straps an extra gun to his ankle. Then he bribes a cab driver to take him directly to DC.

Fifteen minutes before they hit the downtown area, Quinn calls a number he’s had for ten months but never used.

Eliot picks up on the second ring, and Quinn cuts to the chase. “I’m calling in the favor now.”

“Quinn,” Eliot breathes in a warning tone, “now is a bad time.”

“Too bad, I don’t care.” He can’t help the sharp edge to his voice, full of anger that he doesn’t know where to direct. There’s an itch under his skin that he can’t get rid of. Maybe it will go away if he can fix this. If he’s blown the job already, he might as well swing all the way to the other side for now. “So this is what you’re going to do: tell me what you need.”

There’s an abrupt silence over the phone, like Eliot’s stopped breathing. And then he says, in a wary tone that bleeds into exasperation, “I can’t—Quinn, you idiot, are you still in DC?”

“I’m here, so you’re going to tell me where to go and what to do.” Quinn feels calmer after hearing the crack in Eliot’s voice. “Unless you can promise me on your goddamn honor that you don’t need all the help you can get, you’re going to get mine.”

Eliot exhales sharp enough for Quinn to catch, and then he hears voices, which he can vaguely place as Parker’s and Hardison’s. After a quick debate amongst the three of them—where the hell are the two senior teammates, Quinn briefly wonders—Eliot rattles off an address to Quinn. “How fast can you get here?”

Quinn relays the address to the cab driver, and the GPS says it’ll take twenty minutes. 

“Make it ten,” he says to the driver, pulling out a fifty-dollar bill. Then he says into the phone, “So, what are we dealing with here?”

“Spanish Flu,” Eliot says grimly, and Quinn curses in three different languages, which actually makes Eliot huff a dark laugh. “Yeah, you can say that.”

By the time Quinn has been caught up on the situation, he’s pulling up in front of a dull house, and he doesn’t waste any time striding in. None of the thief trio grace him with a greeting because apparently they’ve realized that they sent anti-terrorist forces into a trap, and Quinn watches with bated breath as Hardison works his magic and sends a warning out.

They hear the sounds of people beating a hasty retreat, alive and mostly well, through the sound system of the car Hardison’s hacked, and the three team members are collectively heaving a sigh of relief when Quinn clears his throat. It’s only then that Hardison and Parker regard him with wary looks, but there’s no time to discuss their temporary alliance, not with a terrorism attack about to happen.

So they track Udall, to the subway of all godforsaken places, and it’s chaos from there. Eliot and Hardison get on the subway car from one entrance and Quinn circles around to the other end of the car, drawing his gun and waiting for the moment Parker steals the briefcase and Eliot starts rushing at Udall. The very moment Udall turns his attention to Eliot completely, Quinn steps into the car and aims. Pulls the trigger without hesitation.

Udall cries out, dropping his gun when the first bullet hits his shoulder and then the second one rips through his side. Eliot kicks the gun away and rushes to Parker, Hardison hot on his heels, and Quinn stands a step away, unwilling to crowd them and add a distraction, watching the time tick down.

It’s sheer luck that he catches the movement out of his peripheral vision. He sees Udall crawl for the gun, and Quinn moves fast, kicking the gun out of reach and then clicking the safety of his own Beretta off, aiming at Udall square in the face. There’s an anger simmering in his blood that needs an outlet, and he’s not above shooting a man while he’s down. Especially a man who was about to commit terrorism.

“Give me an excuse to shoot you,” Quinn murmurs, and Udall pales. 

Then there’s a shout as Parker rushes out of the subway car, briefcase in hand, and for a heart-stopping moment, Quinn is sure that they’ve lost. This is the end for them. But then Eliot is standing up, his shoulders at ease, and then he hears Parker and Hardison talking, the urgency melting away into relief in their voices. 

“Looks like you failed,” Quinn says, gun still trained on the man at his feet. He isn’t sure who he’s talking about: Udall or himself. 

And then a firm hand is wrapping around the barrel of his gun, lowering it, a warm presence stepping close to his side and a low voice saying Quinn’s name like an absolution. “We’re good now.”

Things are far from good, but Quinn bites his tongue and holsters his Beretta when Eliot releases his hold on it. He doesn’t bother glancing down at Udall. Everything’s done now. It’s time to go before law enforcement makes an entrance and starts asking some very inconvenient questions about Quinn’s presence. 

“This better be the end of this mess, because I’m not coming back a second time.” He manages a ghost of a smile, which Eliot mirrors with a tilt of his head, indicating the open exit door.

“Go.” It’s the same thing Eliot told him, mere hours ago, but this time the word is gentle. Almost fond.

Quinn takes a moment to look Eliot in the eye, the itch under his skin clawing its way into the cavity of his chest, and then he turns away. He nods at Parker and Hardison as he leaves, receiving friendly gestures in return, and then he makes his way to ground level and takes the long way around to the train station.

-

He sleeps ten hours in the barely acceptable hotel bed. He booked the room for three nights just to be on the safe side, in case complications happened, and he’s glad at the moment to have the extra day to wind down because ‘complications _’_ is a severe understatement of the clusterfuck that was yesterday. Now that he’s not running on an adrenaline high or swimming deep in the subsequent crash, his head is clearer, and he doesn’t like the facts that he lines up in his head.

Everything went wrong the moment Eliot Spencer entered the picture. 

There’s nothing surprising with having a job go to hell when you go up against a hitter of Eliot’s caliber; running into someone who is going to give you hell is an occupational hazard in their line of work.

But, fuck, the problem wasn’t Eliot—well he was part of it; the problem was Quinn. The very moment he’d hesitated to pull the trigger, that moment he’d wavered and placed Eliot’s survival over the job, he’d irrevocably fucked up. He was compromised, and being compromised is a death knell for his career and even his survival.

He’s pacing the floor of his narrow hotel room when somebody knocks on the door. Quinn freezes, then grabs one of his guns and inches towards the door. He chances a look out the peephole and then groans, clicking the safety back on as he opens the door to Eliot Spencer.

“Hardison found you,” Eliot explains as he walks in. He’s holding a paper bag that smells suspiciously like Chinese takeout. “Figured the least I could do to thank you for yesterday was get you lunch.”

“Don’t thank me,” Quinn snaps, closing the door behind him and leaning his back against it, watching Eliot take a seat on the edge of the bed and set the paper bag down on the bedside table. “I was going to shoot you.”

“But you didn’t.” There’s a hint of softness in Eliot’s voice that Quinn hates, because it means that Eliot _knows_. He knows that Quinn is compromised. That Quinn now has a weakness that can be exploited, and that weakness is sitting right here in this room, blue eyes never leaving Quinn’s. 

Quinn wonders, for the sixth time that morning, when this happened. He’s only crossed paths with Eliot Spencer twice during the past five years. Once in an airport hangar for a grand total of maybe ten minutes, and then for a week in and out of an underground cave. Their relationship has been purely professional, both as opponents and allies. Sure, Quinn has a healthy amount of respect for Eliot’s skills and reputation, but he doesn’t think that merits the kind of utter madness— _sentimentality_ , his treacherous brain supplies—that involves prioritizing him over his own work.

Maybe it’s because he doesn’t really see Eliot as a hitter. Sure, Eliot is one of the best Quinn has ever seen in their profession, but there’s more to Eliot than violence. There’s a sharp mind there that Quinn appreciates, a sneaky sense of humor, and a skill with cooking that surprised him during the week-long job last year. There’s the desperation in Eliot to do good, to make up for all the blood on his hands even though he knows it’s impossible to ever truly atone for what he’s done. There’s the vulnerable part of him that loves his team, fiercely and wholeheartedly. 

Eliot isn’t just a hitter; he’s somebody that’s trying, with all his wretched heart and battered soul, to be more than what the world whittled him down to. 

He’s one of the best people Quinn’s ever met.

And Quinn, for all that he’s never given a damn about compassion when he’s on the clock, couldn’t bear to shoot him in the back.

“It’s the second time you made me fail a job,” Quinn says, one hand still holding the gun, wondering if he could shoot Eliot now that they’re face-to-face. If he could erase the itch under his skin if he finally did what he should have done in the first place. “You’re ruining my rep.”

He doesn’t say, _you’re ruining me_.

Eliot looks at him for a long moment, like he heard the words Quinn swallowed down. Then he says, slowly, “I let you go.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Quinn says, because it’s true. “I could’ve still been a threat.”

“I know.” Eliot glances down to the floor, then back up at Quinn. There’s a rueful quirk to his lips that has Quinn realizing with a lurch, his heart tumbling to his stomach, that Eliot just might be as compromised as him. “But I did it anyway.”

Maybe both of them have gone insane. Quinn sure as hell knows they’ve both failed spectacularly as hitters committed to their respective rules; they made choices they shouldn’t have, yesterday. But in this very moment, he can’t bring himself to care about what this means for the rest of his career or survival. All he can feel is the restless itch under his skin. All he can think of is the trust in Eliot’s eyes as he admits that he made the irrational choice for Quinn.

“We’re bad influences on each other,” Quinn jokes weakly. He can’t stop himself from pushing off of the door, taking one step forward, then another, until he’s standing right in front of Eliot. 

“I don’t regret letting you go,” Eliot says. He takes the gun from Quinn’s hand. Quinn lets him take it and set it down gently on the bedside table, next to the bag of takeout. Two warm hands clasp Quinn’s right hand, the one that had been ready to pull the trigger yesterday, and Eliot presses a kiss to the knuckles there. Quinn’s whole body aches at the gesture. 

Quinn leans down, until loose strands of his hair that escaped his ponytail nearly touch Eliot’s cheeks. Eliot tilts his face up to maintain eye contact, and there’s something about the way he bares his throat while doing so, the sheer vulnerability of it, that has Quinn swallowing hard. “You sure about that?”

“I’m sure, Quinn.” Eliot rolls his eyes, but he curls a careful hand around Quinn’s nape, the contact sending a shock of warmth down his spine. Then Eliot’s whole face softens into a helpless smile that steals the breath away from Quinn’s lungs. “You came _back_.” 

When Eliot pulls him in for a kiss, Quinn knows this will be the end of everything he worked for. He’ll always be compromised, after this, by Eliot Spencer.

But with Eliot laying back on the bed, pulling Quinn over him, the two of them kissing each other hungrily, the itch under Quinn’s skin finally soothed away, he thinks that this just might be the beginning of something better.

-

Two months since he last saw Eliot Spencer, he gets a phone call.

“Nate and Sophie decided to retire.” There’s a bittersweet note to Eliot’s tone when he announces the news, but there’s a hint of hope, too. “We got empty seats to fill, and we’d prefer someone who already worked with us before.” He pauses. “Somebody we can trust.”

Quinn’s grinning before he can stop himself. “Oh, let’s see. I bet Chaos isn’t on the candidate list.”

Eliot barks a laugh, fond and exasperated. “Shut up and join the team.”

“Your recruitment speeches could use some work,” Quinn says even as he’s already thinking of logistics. What to pack, what to tell his contacts so that they know he’s off the market now, what to do when he can finally kiss Eliot again.

“Well, it’s working, isn’t it?” Eliot’s grin is audible over the phone. Then his voice drops half an octave, honey-sweet and as intimate as a hand sliding up an inner thigh. “Come back, Quinn.”

As if he could ever say no to that.

“Darlin’,” Quinn says, keeping his tone light-hearted to disguise the fact that he means every word, “I’ll always come back for you.”

**Author's Note:**

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